


Swan and Goose

by Emolga



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Zack's parents, mentions of Zack, non-angsty Cloud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 20:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/957123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emolga/pseuds/Emolga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud returns to Gongaga and finds someone he can't remember meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swan and Goose

The air in Gongaga still smelled thickly of mako.

His footsteps were light and cautious despite the recent years of peace, and they rolled over the barren outskirts of town like a forgotten drumbeat of war, offset by the crunch of gravel and sand beneath his slightly-twisted gait. The former presence of a sword against his back taught his feet to compensate for a weight that was no longer there, adding inward-facing smudges to the boot-prints he left behind as he traveled over the worn paths he’d come to know during his travels, too-dry eyes roaming the place where the entryway to the detonated reactor met the inhabited portion of the area. At long last, nature was initiating a gradual revival after technology failed; new patches of grass and weed sprang up where electrical fires and tainted lifestream had burned it away, but the houses which gradually came into view were still slanted and run down, a meager few of them still spitting smoke from their chimneys. 

Cloud slowed to a stop at the entrance to the town, his shoulders hunched defensively. The mourners he remembered from years past were gone from the make-shift graveyard towards his left, and the flowers which sat atop the grave-markers were old and withered as if they were parodying the freshness of the tragedy when he first visited this forsaken place. Attendance had clearly dropped in this dying town — something he already knew due to the infrequent deliveries he made here — and he could only hope that the people he sought were still permanent residents. After all, this post-technological world provided more than a few difficulties when it came to locating people across the vastness of a newly mako-free realm.

Equally soft steps brought him towards a house that he remembered all too well, glowing eyes focused blearily on the grey wisps that curled heavenwards from the mud-brick crown atop the degrading shack’s roof. Knowing that someone was home brought forth hesitance that he thought he’d squelched, and he slowed down once more, hands flexing anxiously by his side as he resisted the instinctive urge to grasp for a weapon which he no longer carried on his person.

He should have done this years ago, but the choice was not his to make until recently.

Drawing in a deep breath, he closed the gap between his tense form and the door with a few more halting steps. His fist planted three heavy knocks against the wood, a sound that was muffled only slightly by his leather gloves, and his breath caught as he awaited a reply.

“Come in,” a voice from inside offered cordially.

Cloud opened the door quietly so not to disturb the home’s inhabitants and was immediately taken aback. The figure seated at the table was neither an elderly woman nor an elderly man; on the contrary, it was a young lady he didn’t immediately recognize, whose downcast eyes were obscured by shoulder-length auburn waves.

Perhaps they had moved? He raised a hand to scratch nervously at his neck and began backpedaling towards the still-open door, his gaze averted as if he’d witnessed something very private.

“Sorry,” he muttered, his leather-clad fingers fidgeting against the shortest blonde hairs at his nape. “Wrong house.”  
“It’s not the wrong house,” she replied immediately, her tone so light it made him doubt that she’d actually spoken. Still, her statement was cause for consideration, so he stopped his retreat once he was standing in the doorway, his focused gaze prompting her without words to explain herself.

She turned slightly to face him, small hands sliding a white mug full of steaming liquid towards the edge of the table as she reoriented herself. Her eyes were the same golden-brown of the soil that had suddenly remembered how to give life, but their sharpness betrayed the empty and practiced smile which failed to light up the rest of her delicate features. In a strange way, he reminded her of somebody else with Planet-colored eyes and a faint yet insistent smile — someone who experienced a constant barrage of unspoken trials which hardened her until she was suddenly gone, snuffed out like the warm glow of a candle’s flame.

He swallowed and found that his tongue had gone dry.

“You’re looking for Zack’s parents,” she offered, breaking the silence without warning. It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact, and Cloud felt himself nodding to confirm her suspicion with a surprising lack of reserve. Her smile widened knowingly, but it did nothing to alter the impassiveness of her face. “Come and sit,” she said lightly, her gaze landing on the empty chair which sat across from her. He closed the door in response to her invitation, cutting off the outdoor breeze which made the flames within the fireplace dance atop charred logs.

“I’m glad you’re still alive,” the woman added in a tone so matter-of-fact it was almost humorous, but her unchanging expression indicated that she wasn’t trying to be funny. Cloud did as he was told and took up the vacant seat across from the woman as per her request, but her confession still earned her a sidelong look of suspicion.  
“Do I know you?” He prompted, though not without feeling some degree of guilt over his unwarranted hostility. His face had become fairly well-known during the Jenova War and the years that followed, but an inkling sensation in the back of his mind suggested that her recognition of his features ran deeper than watching a news broadcast or spotting a wanted poster.

She reassumed her previous forward-facing position when he first made contact with the creaky chair, both hands closing around the mug as she slid it over a dark-colored rung in the table. Rather than looking up at his face she instead watched the contents of her cup, small motions from her wrists causing the tea within to shift from side to side without spilling over.  
“Not really,” she admitted, her shoulders lifting slightly in a gesture of neutrality. “We only met once or twice, while you and Zack were trying to escape.”

His lips twisted into a thoughtful frown, and a furrowed brow followed soon after as his vividly-blue gaze was downcast towards his dirt-caked boots. No matter how intently he tried to recall the events of his escape from ShinRa custody, the only details he could summon forth with any semblance of clarity were the ones in which Zack spent his final moments begging Cloud not to forget what they’d been through.  
(He’d moved past the guilt for the most part, but there were times when it still came back to bite him, as to be expected of any great trauma.)

“Who are you?” He demanded once he was sure that his memory had failed, his eyes roaming over her face as if in search of a clue. She stilled her hands and finally rewarded him with eye contact, the pads of her fingers drumming lightly against the heated porcelain of the cracked mug.  
“You can call me Cissnei,” she announced, her smile taking on a more thrifty edge. This time her eyes squinted along with her smile, and it made her look vaguely fox-like — like she was hiding an obvious fact and delighting in his continued ignorance.

Cloud found her change in expression slightly suspect, but he decided not to call her on it. Instead he extended a gloved hand over the expanse of the table, trying in vain to duplicate her smile but only managing a humorless smirk in its stead.  
“Cloud,” he supplemented with a dry chuckle, “but I think you already knew that.”  
“I did,” she confirmed, her own vibrant chuckle showing that she was far more amused by the exchange than he. Their extended fingers met halfway across the tabletop, and he felt the lingering warmth from her mug seep from her bare palms through the fabric of his gloves as they shook hands to mark their first formal introduction. The contact was brief, and silence fell between them as their hands returned to their prior locations, hers wrapping around the cup and his falling against his lap.

Cloud had many questions to ask of her (why are you here, did you know Zack, are you related to these people,) but he found the majority of them inappropriate given the current setting. He turned his face towards the glow of the fire as if to disengage himself from the scenario and watched the orange-yellow flames sway from the draft which swept down the chimney, blinking in surprise each time a log popped with heat and sent off a spray of red embers. Flames always reminded him of things he would prefer to forget, but the flashbacks had begun to lessen now that he wasn’t living the life of a warrior, and for that he was immensely grateful; at the very least, he could enjoy the sight of a contained fire heating up a small house without feeling bile rise into his throat and sweat bead against his skin.

“If you’re here to tell them about Zack,” she began suddenly, causing Cloud to lurch upright in surprise, “you should know that you don’t have to.” He looked towards her and found that her expression was blank once more — and perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he may have detected the barest hint of a frown creasing her lips.  
“Why not?” He asked out of genuine curiosity, though he couldn’t help but feel newly hostile about the situation. It had taken him years to sort through his own problems well enough so that he felt confident in addressing the parents of the man who saved his life, and the idea of being told to back down from it now didn’t sit right with him in the slightest.  
“They already know,” she admitted. Cloud’s eyebrows shot up towards his hairline.  
“They know?” He parroted dumbly.  
“I told them.” Her posture tensed, suddenly portraying a look of immense discomfort. “After Meteor was destroyed… I guess it made me realize that eventually, time runs out for everyone.” Her right hand rose to tuck a rogue curl of hair behind her ear. “They deserved to know before their time came,” she stated resolutely, her eyes roaming over the untouched liquid trapped inside the cup like she was searching for answers within its depths.

The revelation was slightly numbing to Cloud. He’d come here with every intention of sharing with the aging Fairs everything he knew about their son — his accomplishments, his dreams, his untimely death — only to discover that the story he’d been guarding for so long had already been told. His disquieting silence and sudden gaze aversion must have struck a chord within Cissnei, who brought that same eggshell-fragile smile back onto her face as if to console him.

“They don’t know what you know,” she explained, her head tilting slightly to the right. “For now, they only understand things from a Turk’s point of view.”

Cloud sat upright once more, fixing Cissnei with a cautious stare. This new information certainly explained a thing or two; now that her occupation had been brought to light, he finally understood her ‘I’m-hiding-something’ aura and the lack of depth behind her smiles. With her admittance bolstering his imagination, he had no trouble picturing her in a dark-colored and well-pressed suit, casually slotting Materia into her weapon of choice as she sought out a good place to hide a body.  
“I’m not a Turk anymore,” she expanded as if trying to soothe his worries. “I was exiled.”  
“Exiled?”  
“Worse than getting fired, but preferential to being executed.” Again, she smiled listlessly.

Cloud had to admire her tenacity in surviving whatever ‘exile’ from ShinRa entailed. It didn’t take much to plant oneself on the former company’s blacklist; if they were willing to bring an entire plate down in Midgar for the sake of killing six Eco-terrorists, he was certain she’d been delivered a few unpleasant surprises as well. Evidently it was beneficial to everyone that the power-monopoly had fallen in Meteor’s stead.

“I was a friend of Zack’s,” she continued, discomfort creeping back into the manner in which she held herself above the table. “Not a very good one, but… I cared about him.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “We tried to save you both — Tseng and I — but it wasn’t enough. We were too slow, and…” She paused for a moment, and if not for her lack of outward expression, Cloud would have assumed she was trying to pull herself back together. “We should have communicated better. I let you escape, thinking Tseng was working for the scientists… But he was going against his orders and trying to rescue you. If I hadn’t lied and said you’d gotten away, we may have…”

Cissnei finally glanced up and, upon seeing the lack of comprehension on Cloud’s puzzled face, shook her head to stop herself from speaking further. There was no use apologizing for things that couldn’t be undone.

“They’ll be home soon,” she stated, rising up from her seat. Cloud’s mako-tainted eyes followed her every move like those of a vigilant Condor, guarded but not mistrustful. “If you’re still up for it, I think they’d like to hear what you have to say.”

Cloud kept his silence. He was caught off-guard when Cissnei began to smile — a genuine one this time, one that made her eyes squint and her cheeks dimple.

“You remind me of Zack,” she said, regarding him with something between fascination and curiosity. “You’d look just like him if you smiled more.”

Cloud’s mouth opened to offer a rebuttal when the door began to open at the young woman’s back. He was dimly aware that Cissnei was already retreating towards the entrance as an older couple stepped into the small cabin, the taller man’s arm wrapped about his wife’s slight shoulders. Their guest immediately stood up and offered his seat to the homeowners out of respect, and a look of vague recognition washed over their faces once they saw him, perhaps registering his presence from when he first came to this town all those years ago.

“I’ve seen you somewhere before,” the woman informed him, bundling her shawl in a fist held close to her heart. The smile on her face suggested that she and her husband didn’t get many guests aside from Cissnei, whose presence was such a constant that they felt the need to acknowledge her departure with only the barest of nods. “How do you know Solana?”

— Solana?  
He leaned around the old woman’s arthritic form to shoot the ex-Turk an accusatory look as she left and was mildly surprised to see that she was already gone, nothing a firmly-shut door and a still-full mug left in her wake.  
“We just met,” he said half-truthfully, unable to banish a hint of resentment from his tone. Idly he wondered how many names she had for herself, and whether or not the one she gave to the Fairs was a fabrication as well.

The elderly woman broke away from her husband and headed for the diminutive kitchen off to the side of the room, shuffling in small steps.  
“I’ll get you some tea, dear,” she said brightly as her husband took Cissnei’s former seat. The two men nodded to one another in greeting, forcing friendly smiles to dissipate some of the awkward tension. “What would you like?”

Cloud hesitated. He knew the news he carried would likely bring them pain, but they’d been sitting on the mystery surrounding their son’s death for some time now; beyond that, he was unsure of how much Cissnei — or Solana, to them — had revealed, and how much she knew of the event in the first place. He fidgeted where he stood, his back to the warmth of the fire, and lightly shook his head to clear his thoughts.

Cissnei’s unexpected exposition suggested that her greatest regret was geared towards the lack of communication between herself and her supervisor, something that she believed cost Zack his life. He knew all too well what that sort of guilt could do to a person.

“I don’t need anything,” he responded, his voice quiet. “Actually… I’m here to tell you about your son.”

A teacup cracked against the sink as Mrs. Fair exhausted a jerky motion to whip around and look at Cloud, her hands trembling faintly. Across the room from her, Mr. Fair gaped at his guest with eyes that looked far too much like Zack’s, leaning forward in anticipation while his expression portrayed an opposing look of foreboding.

“You knew him?” The older man ventured in a tone that suggested he didn’t recall Cloud’s previous refusal to cooperate, back when Aerith still breathed and laughed and smiled and Tifa still kept secrets for his own benefit while it tore her apart inside.

What Cloud knew of Zack’s life was like a beautiful song, an ode to a man who only wanted the best for those around him. It was time for his surviving best friend to perform it in full, and he wouldn’t stop until the parents of the long-deceased hero were singing along in joyous praise.

“I did,” he confirmed after a beat of silence. “I was there when he died.”

Zack’s mother wept into her hands, and Cloud suddenly felt more liberated than ever before.

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE CISSNEI.
> 
> okay, some notes about this piece:  
> \- This is the first fanfic I've written in like four years, so please be gentle. (It's also my first upload! HI EVERYBODY.)  
> \- The work's title is a reference to the Aesop's Fable about a swan and a goose, wherein a swan is mistaken for a goose and begins to sing so it won't be killed for food. The moral is that talking things out with someone is for the best, and it's a reference both to Cissnei's alias (which is evidently from the Spanish word for swan, "cisne,") and the fact that a communication breakdown within the Turks led to Zack being executed before they could rescue him.  
> \- I like the name Solana for Cissnei because it goes with the weather motif (like Cloud, Fair, etc.) Is it her "real" name in the context of the fanfic? ... well, what do you think? \o/  
> \- I never played Before Crisis because it's only in Japanese, so I apologize for any anachronisms. I'm working on finishing an LP of it, but it's slow going!  
> \- I imagined this taking place a few years after Dirge of Cerberus, but you can place it anywhere post-Advent Children.  
> \- I miss Zack. ;_;
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading! Feel free to message me so we can cry about FFVII together!


End file.
